Denver’s fourth touchdown drive of the evening belonged to Tatum Bell, who gained 36 yards on four carries to put the Broncos back in front for the first time midway through the second quarter.

Of significance on the drive:

… Denver ran four plays — all runs. Twelve of their last 14 plays have come on the ground.

… The defense has found its footing, forcing back-to-back punts from Arizona after going puntless for the first two and a half quarters.

… The Broncos went for two for the third time tonight, but this try failed as Bradlee Van Pelt was pressured and had his pass for Brandon Miree swatted away.

I’ll be heading downstairs for post-game interviews shortly. Since we return to Denver immediately after the game along with the team, I’ll be back on-line after we return overnight to provide a post-game wrap.

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The deep balls referenced in my previous post may have been a recurrent theme of the game, but the run was the storyline of the Broncos’ second drive after halftime — which is why it was appropriate that Cedric Cobbs tied the game with his run on a two-point conversion that followed the Fort Collins touchdown connection (Bradlee Van Pelt to Cecil Sapp).

Following the deep incompletion to David Terrell, the Broncos ran on their next six plays — seven, if you count an 8-yard Cobbs run that was nullified by holding. Van Pelt scrambled his way to 16 yards on two carries, while Cobbs slugged for 18 yards on four carries.

If there’s a theme tonight, it’s Broncos receivers getting their chances at big plays on deep receptions. David Kircus cashed in on one and lost another when Lamont Reid swatted it away. Todd Devoe had a deep reception up the left sideline skip out of his hands.

But David Terrell might have had it worst. Bradlee Van Pelt rolled right — just as he had earlier — and sailed his second pass of the night deep up the middle of the field for David Terrell, who was behind the entire Arizona defense.

The pass was on target — but so too was Arizona safety Jack Brewer. I almost typed Bauer there. Appropriate; just like the hero of 24, Brewer saved the day for his team, zooming out of what seemed like nowhere to break up the pass — a play that mirrored Sam Brandon’s deflection of what would have been a Kurt Warner-to-Bryant Johnson touchdown midway through the first quarter.

Worth noting — Matt Leinart is out for the rest of the game with a sprained right shoulder.  John Navarre is next on Arizona’s depth chart.

Bradlee Van Pelt’s first play didn’t happen — a false-start penalty on Chris Kuper knocked the Broncos back five yards. A pair of 4-yard Tatum Bell runs followed before an incompletion ended the drive.

That series saw extended action continue for Nate Jackson, Chris Kuper, Chris Myers, Greg Eslinger, Cecil Sapp and Dwayne Carswell; all have been in the lineup for a majority of the snaps since the game’s opening moments.

Micah Knorr — who handled the second-half-opening kickoff — shanked the punt, but a fortuitous bounce and Michael Spurlock’s inability to field it cleanly turned the play into a net of 44 yards, although Arizona did recover the loose football.

Two minutes later, the Bronocos forced the Cardinal’s first punt of the game, which Charlie Adams fielded before darting and dodging his way to a solid 16-yard return.

And now at running back … Cedric Cobbs.

After scarfing down some halftime victuals consisting of tortilla chips dipped in fresh, cilantro-laden salsa, shredded white-meat chicken, lukewarm diet Coke watered down by long-since-melted ice and a pair of potato chips, these mid-game notes:

… Is it possible for all three of this year’s heralded first-round rookie quarterbacks to be successful? Jay Cutler, Vince Young and Matt Leinart have each enjoyed moments where they looked extraordinarily impressive. In watching all three in person the past 12 days, Young is definitely the most raw, but is blessed with a howitzer and — as he showed by absorbing several hits in Denver — is just as tough as his arm is strong. It’s far too early to pass judgment on all of them, but so far, so good …

… Denver’s offense actually outgained Arizona’s before intermission, 231 yards to 228 …

… Mike Bell led the Broncos at halftime with 27 yards on six carries for a solid 4.5-yard average. In second place? Cutler, with eight yards on a third-down scramble during the game’s first possession …

… Rod Smith on David Kircus’s path to the Broncos: “Not all of us make sandwiches. Every single one of us has our own way, but we made it to the NFL.”

As for the opening paragraph, that one’s for you, Tom McEwen, one of the West Central Florida sportswriters whose words I inhaled many years ago.

Arizona’s offense has picked up where it left off in its punt-free first half, gashing the third-quarter game clock by draining more than half of the 15 minutes on their march downfield. It would result in no more than three points, though, as Jeff Shoate and Hamza Abdullah helped prevent a third-and-10 Leinart pass from finding its end-zone target. Neil Rackers kicked a 33-yard field goal one play later, but the Broncos offense will take the field only one score behind — 23-15.

Jay Cutler and Todd Devoe chumawumba’d their way through the final moments of the first half. They got knocked down, but they got up again, and even though they couldn’t connect on a two-point conversion, they got the Broncos back within one score at 20-15 by overcoming an interception and a drop, respectively, to eventually collaborate on a 24-yard touchdown play just 6.2 seconds before halftime.

Here’s what I wrote before Cutler’s touchdown pass to Devoe:

With one errant throw, Cutler’s passer rating dropped from 146.8 to 97.9 — a full 48.9 points. That’s what happens when you throw an interception, as he looked for Nate Jackson across the middle but watched as Robert Tate stepped in front of the toss and returned it 24 yards for a touchdown that left the Broncos behind 20-9. The play left Cutler 111 seconds before halftime with which he can try to redeem himself. Seven of those second elapsed with Brian Clark’s 31-yard return, bringing the Broncos out to their 30 to open the drive.

Of course, that didn’t prove problematic after Devoe leapt to snag the pass from Cutler just past the goal line and inside the pylon. Paul Ernster then drilled a 73-yard kickoff for a touchback.

On a snap that seemed to have a twinge of a pick-play quality to it, Denver fell behind for the first time. Domonique Foxworth was hit just as a Matt Leinart pass zoomed past him and into the hands of Troy Walters, who galloped about 10 yards for Arizona’s first touchdown of the evening and a 13-9 lead.If there was a distressing sequence for the Broncos’ defense to this point; that possession was it; Matt Leinart posted a perfect 158.3 passer rating on that drive, completing five of six passes for 77 yards at Denver’s expense. Arizona’s quarterbacks have now completed 15 of 18 passes for 209 yards and the touchdown.

But what might be an equally impressive statistic — especially in the preseason — is that wide receiver David Kircus just cracked the century mark for receiving yardage tonight: three catches for 100 yards in the game’s first 28 minutes.

The Broncos also have someone NOT named Bell at tailback; Cedric Cobbs entered on this drive and gained two yards on a second-and-9 carry that followed a five-yard, Greg Eslinger false-start infraction.

Denver’s third possession might have been its most interesting, albeit its least fruitful. It saw Jay Cutler lose a fumble on a sack, then see it oveturned by a holding penalty on Arizona’s Eric Green. One play later, it saw Cutler take a second stab at the bootleg-and-throw-deep play for Kircus, but this time Arizona’s Lamont Reid got just enough of his hand on the football to swat away what would have been a 53-yard touchdown.

The crowd is on its feet right now in the far right corner from where I sit. At first, I thought the fans were rising for the entrance of Matt Leinart. Then I see slingshots and t-shirts. Nothing is more effective at getting the crowd out of its feet, not the red light of a camera transmitting images to the tyranno-vision screens in each end zone, not a scoreboard frantically flashing “NOISE!” and blinking at a rate that could cause seizures.

Leinart did waste little time in moving the Cardinals downfield; he completed three of his first four passes for 50 yards.

The Cardinals weren’t quite full-tilt with the first team on their second possession, replacing Edgerrin James with J.J. Arrington. They did leave many other starters in and sliced and diced their way down the field, but an illegal-hands-to-the-face penalty on Jeremy Bridges wiped out a 14-yard Warner-to-Boldin connection that had moved Arizona to the Denver 3 and put them in second-and-20. Arizona didn’t recover from that and settled for Neil Rackers’ second field goal of the night.

If that is the end of the night for the Cardinals’ first team — and it would appear to be that way for the most part, since Matt Leinart is warming up and Calvin Pace is the only Cardinals first-teamer I see out there for the defense as it takes the field for the third time tonight — then Denver’s backups have to claim something of a moral victory, outscoring Arizona’s starters 9-6 and recording a pair of red-zone stops.

Denver’s No. 2 offense remains in for the game’s third possession, with Tatum Bell at tailback. He was in for the one-play, 84-yard drive propelled by the Jay Cutler-to-David Kircus connection.